When Amazon announced that it had purchased the naming rights to Seattle’s newly rebuilt multipurpose arena in June 2020, it wasn’t the usual deal to slap a corporate moniker on a sports venue. First off, it wasn’t Amazon’s name going on the … Continue reading
Even for Albany, the endgame went fast. For the better part of three months, Governor Kathy Hochul had kept her plan to throw public money at a new stadium for the Buffalo Bills under wraps as the state budget progressed, … Continue reading
As Major League Baseball’s scheduled March 31 opening day looms nearer without a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA), the nation’s sports media are pointing fingers squarely at both sides: the players’ union as well as team owners, who have been … Continue reading
In the winter of 2006, the mood among Bronx elected officials was of hard-fought accomplishment. Along with representatives of Bronx community groups and developers the Related Companies, borough politicians had just finished hashing out a deal for the planned overhaul … Continue reading
When Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed legislation in December making Ohio the 33rd state to legalize sports gambling, the talk locally was less of opening up the joys of betting on who’ll score the Cleveland Browns’ first touchdown than of … Continue reading
Readers of CNN’s website (4/15/21) saw an alarming headline: “So Far, 5,800 Fully Vaccinated People Have Caught Covid Anyway in US, CDC Says.” Nearly 6,000 so-called “breakthrough” infections—cases of Covid-19 contracted by people after they had been vaccinated against the coronavirus … Continue reading
Future generations, if there are any future generations, may one day look back at the Texas Rangers’ stadium as the first stadium designed for the Anthropocene epoch. Globe Life Field was built at a cost of $1.2 billion, nearly half of … Continue reading
MLB’s year-long assault on its minor-league affiliates, first launched last fall, ended this month with unconditional surrender, as the nation’s farm teams fully capitulated to a plan that will see 43 franchises either get bumped to independent leagues, demoted to amateur leagues, or … Continue reading
When the New York city council held a hearing on October 13th to address the digital divide — the persistent inequities in internet access that have left millions of New Yorkers without sufficient broadband service — Felix Guzman, a member of, VOCAL-NY, had … Continue reading
If pandemic Manhattan is a ghost town, Hudson Yards is its ghost capital. The million-square-foot mall built into the base of 20 Hudson Yards is open but eerily empty, its assemblage of single-named highest-end stores—Dior, Fendi, Cartier, Rolex—entirely devoid of … Continue reading